


And If I Stay

by CaptainLeBubbles



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3692049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did I ever tell you about my boys?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	And If I Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://piratewatchesrvb.tumblr.com/post/115570106359/queerlocus-kalboony-nonbinaryfelix-makes) on Tumblr.

The wound is not serious, something Dr. Grey finds herself repeating several times to the worried Reds who hover too close while she tends to their CO. True, it is an assortment of bullet wounds, and bullet wounds are bad and preferably avoided, but compared to some of the bullet wounds she’s tended, it barely qualifies as an inconvenience. Certainly it’s the sort that she can tend to in her sleep, which she probably shouldn’t have actually said because now Grif is shouting at her and throwing around words like ‘ _psychotic_ ’ and ‘ _don’t you fucking dare_ ’ and the distraction isn’t helping anyone.

She doses Sarge on pain-killers and gets to work while the Reds look on from the reasonable distance she sternly ordered them to wait at. They probably shouldn’t be here at all, really- Simmons looks unhealthily pale and Grif is holding his hand so tightly in his own that it would likely be broken if it weren’t made of metal; Donut has been fluttering around babbling nonsense about aloe vera and cpr for the past ten minutes and Lopez looks significantly less sarcastic than usual and significantly _more_ worried than any blank-faced robot has any right to, particularly one who makes a game of hurling unintelligible insults at the man she is currently operating on.

Sarge starts talking between the first and second bullet that she pulls out of him, babbled nonsense at first and she mostly ignores him, because she has a job to do and he isn’t saying anything important.

“Did I ever tell you about my boys?” he says after a few minutes, grinning blearily at her. She hums a negative and carries on working. He laughs, and falls silent for a moment while she finishes digging out the second bullet and gets to work on the third.

“Got four of ‘em,” he goes on. “They’re good boys, you know. Don’t always tell ‘em that. Probably should.” He goes quiet, and Dr. Grey glances up at the Reds, who mostly look confused. She looks back to Sarge, smiling happily at the ceiling, and manages to catch on faster than the Reds appear to be. She touches his forehead gently to get his attention.

“Tell me about your boys, Sarge,” she says. “I’d love to hear about them.”

He doesn’t start talking immediately, and she gets the third bullet out before he does. Only two more, and then she can start sewing him up.

“They’re good boys,” he says again. “They’re smart and brave and loyal and resourceful and I don’t think they know how proud of them I am. Probably think I don’t care about ‘em, but I do.” He catches her wrist in one hand, grip surprisingly strong for someone on heavy pain killers, and she looks down and is surprised to see tears prickling in the corner of his eyes. She gently pulls her arm from his grip and he lets his hand fall back to the operating table. “Love those boys,” he goes on. “Not the best dad to ‘em but I try. I _try_.”

Fourth bullet out. She glances up at the Reds again; Simmons looks close to tears and Grif actually _is_ in tears. Donut has stopped fluttering and is clinging to Simmons’ other side. Lopez is in the exact pose he was in before, but three feet closer to his teammates. She turns back to Sarge.

“What would you say to them, Sarge? If you could tell them?”

“Well…” He’s silent again, but at a prompting nudge he smiles. “I’d tell ‘em how proud I am to call ‘em my team. Best team any Sergeant can ask for. I lost two of ‘em awhile back. Thought I was gonna lose a third one. Don’t remember ever being so scared.” One of his tears manages to break free and slides down into his hair; another joins it and more follow. She nudges him again, prompting more.

“But you didn’t, though,” she says. “They’re okay, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. Yeah, they’re okay. My boys are good at surviving. Trained ‘em good. Now they’re training their own teams. I met those kids they’ve been training. They’re doing good by ‘em. Gonna turn ‘em into something great.”

She gets the fifth and final bullet out and gets to work sewing up the wound.

“Sarge,” she says. “I think your boys love you a lot.”

“You think so?”

She glances up at the Reds again. They’re all in tears by now; even Lopez is managing to convey the _impression_ of tears. She looks back down at him and smiles.

“Yes. I definitely think so.”


End file.
